Perry suggests predator drones for border patrol

Glen Johnson tidily wrote up Rick Perry's initial foray into policy prescriptions while he was in New Hampshire on Saturday at a house party, taking questions from the crowd there.

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One answer dealt with securing the border with Mexico, which his state abuts, and for which he suggested a more sophisticated and muscular approach to dealing with drug cartels:

"You have those boots on the ground and in preparation have 3,000 additional border patrol and probably another 1,000 to go on to the Pacific. And then you use the aviation assets that we have.

"I mean, we know that there are Predator drones being flown for practice every day because we're seeing them, we're preparing these young people to fly missions in these war zones that we have. But some of those, they have all the equipment, they're obviously unarmed, they've got the downward-looking radar, they've got the ability to do night work and through clouds. Why not be flying those missions and using (that) real-time information to help our law-enforcement? Becuase if we will commit to that, I will suggest to you that we will be able to drive the drug cartels away from our border."

UPDATE: And why not indeed, as several readers reminded me, since the Department of Homeland Security has been flying drones along that border for the last six years.